


Capitulation

by casual_distance



Series: 30 Day Cheesy Tropes Challenge [9]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Anal Sex, Angst, Bottom Castiel, Frottage, Hand Jobs, M/M, Minor Charlie Bradbury, Minor Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester, Minor John Winchester, Minor John Winchester/Mary Winchester, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Top Dean Winchester, minor Mary Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 04:55:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4087726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casual_distance/pseuds/casual_distance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean is five when he finally gets curious enough to ask about the tattoo on his father’s arm and learns how his dad and mom are each other’s soulmate.  Dean is ten when he starts looking up stories about soulmates, but it’s not until he’s fourteen that he decides he doesn’t care if he gets a soulmate or not.</p><p>He’s sixteen when he learns he doesn’t have a say in the matter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Capitulation

**Part One**

Dean is sixteen when the psychic Pamela knocks on their door and says she’s there to give him a soulmate tattoo. Dean doesn’t know how old she is, but Pamela did his mother’s tattoo- a strange one of three red lines that look like bloody gashes slanted across her heart. When she met John, Mary’s tattoo changed so that three brown gashes slanted the opposite direction, weaving above and below the red ones. John has the same gashes, but his cut across his left forearm.

Like all psychics Pamela stares blindly at him through white eyes, but she moves like she can see. Layers of tattoos crawl down her arms and over her shoulders. Dean sees them curve with the arch of her spine when she bends down to settle her equipment on the floor next to the table. Dean watches her run her fingers over her equipment, pulling out the tattoo gun and picking ink colors seemingly at random. Dean knows that the same force that brought her here today is what picks the colors of his tattoo.

He fidgets as she sets everything up and then turns her blind eyes toward him.

“Don’t be so nervous, kid,” she says. “Not everyone gets a soulmate.”

Dean shrugs. He used to play soulmates like everyone else, but as he’d gotten older, as he’d learned about them, the idea had worn thin and the desire for one had faded. Now that he knows there’s someone out there for him, he finds he’s wary of the idea.

“Here.” She pats his thigh, causing him to jump. She laughs and tugs on the sleeve of his shirt. “Take this off. It’s to go on your arm.”

He slips out of his flannel and, when she gestures again, his t-shirt. She grabs his arm and drags him closer to begin her work. She starts on the top of his shoulder, creating a spiraling, almost geometric pattern that curves down over the front of his shoulder, curls around the lines of his upper arm, and winds down toward his elbow in a blue ink that edges toward green. There are clear gaps in the pattern that, he supposes, will be filled in when he finally meets his soulmate. 

It’s a beautiful tattoo, even clearly incomplete, but when his parents see it, his mother blinks in shock, her mouth dropping open, and his father turns to Pamela asking, “Are you sure?”

Pamela raises her eyebrows at him and he quells, turning to frown at Dean, arms crossed over his chest.

“What?” Dean asks, suddenly nervous.

Mary sits beside him and rests a hand on his forearm. “It’s nothing to be worried about, Dean, honey. Just...the size of the tattoo and the complexity usually indicate how strong the bond will be.”

Dean doesn’t understand the implications then, at sixteen. It isn’t until he goes to college, till he starts meeting people outside his family, other people with soulmate tattoos, that he starts to understand what his mother was saying. Dean doesn’t meet anyone with a tattoo as large as his. Very few have one as intricate as he does. Very few have one whose soulmate’s will be as entwined as his. No one has both. 

By the time he graduates, Dean understands what has been tattooed on his arm, and it terrifies him.

 

**Part Two**

Dean meets his soulmate at 27- except that he doesn’t. 

Dean finds himself dragged to the mall on Black Friday by his best friend and his brother. Charlie squeals in his ear as she drags him through the gaming store, pushing past the crowds to claim some rare D&D cards she’s had her eyes on for ages. Sam had bailed on them to go shopping for clothes of all things. Dean unhappily tags along, scowling at every person who bumps into him, glaring when mothers roll over his feet with strollers, growling angrily at teenagers who push into him.

Charlie wears down after four hours; Sam acts like he could go on for another four.

“No!” Dean snaps at him. “I’m hungry and bruised all over. Shopping is not meant to be a contact sport,” he whines. Sam sighs and bitches and makes faces, but he gives in and they snag some burgers at the food court before they make their way home.

That night, as Dean changes for bed, he pulls off his shirt and finds that his tattoo is complete. He runs his fingers over the new lines. He stands in front of the bathroom mirror and studies the new ink, a green that completes the blue’s transitioning color. His soulmate’s portion fills in the gaps, and it’s the most beautiful design Dean has ever seen. He touches it and swallows heavily. He stays in the bathroom so long Sam comes and bangs on the door.

Dean opens the door and stares at Sam wordlessly until Sam raises his eyebrows and goes, “What, Dean?”

Dean turns to present his arm. Sam sucks in a breath. He stares back just as silent now.

Somewhere, in that mall, where Dean touched hundreds of strangers, he soulmate brushed past him and disappeared into the crowds.

And Dean has no idea who it was.

Dean goes back to the mall the next day. He wanders around, looking for someone who looks like they are looking for someone. He tires after an hour and sits in the food court. No one stands out; no one calls to him. Dean scrubs a hand through his hair and watches for another hour before he gives up.

He goes every day after work the next week, but he finds himself less and less interested. He spends less time looking at the crowds and more time window shopping until he gets fed up and heads home. Then he gets invited out after work on Friday with colleagues, and he goes. Dean doesn’t go back to the mall; he doesn’t even wish he had. He studies the tattoo occasionally in the mirror, but his life goes on.

Sam comes to him, sits him down in front of the computer, and shows him a website. 

“It’s for people who missed their soulmates,” he tells Dean. “You post a picture of your tattoo and share the details of how you think it happened. They’ve reunited dozens of couples.”

Dean clicks the window closed and stands up. “Not interested, Sammy.”

“But Dean-”

Sam has always believed. He got his tattoo at seventeen, met Jess at twenty. He fell head over heels for her and didn’t look back. Dean knows Sam wants that for him, but Dean doesn’t believe the way Sam does.

“No, Sam. I don’t-” He stops. He waves his hand as he says, “I don’t believe that some mystical Powers That Be can decide who I’m happiest with. I don’t want them to decide. It’s not-” Dean shrugs. “It’s not for me, Sam, and I’m fine with that.”

It’s the bone-deep truth and saying it out loud takes a weight off Dean he didn’t even know he felt. Sam looks at him doubtfully, but he doesn’t bring it up again.

 

**Part Three**

Dean is 31 when he meets Castiel at the bar where he is celebrating his birthday. Castiel is sitting on a stool, drinking water and talking to the bartender, when Dean slouches up and interrupts to ask for his own glass of water. He lists to the side, slumping into Castiel before jerking himself up right.

“‘Scuse me, man,” Dean slurs with a giddy smile.

Castiel quirks an amused smile at him. The bartender brings Dean his water, and Dean slams it back like it’s a shot, waving the glass for another. He wiggles his eyebrows at Castiel when he snorts at Dean. Dean drinks the second glass slower and sits down next to Castiel.

“Why aren’t you drinkin’?” Dean asks, pointing with his chin at Castiel’s half-full glass.

“I’m the designated driver,” Castiel answers and gestures to a rowdy group in the corner. Dean and his friends have been competing for noisiest group with them all night.

Dean pouts. “Tha’s no fun.”

Castiel smiles at him, showing gums, nose wrinkling, and Dean can’t help but to return it, feeling easily smitten by his good cheer, his wide blue eyes. 

“I’m having fun talking to you,” Castiel says, and Dean leans a little bit closer.

“I’m having fun, too! I’s my birthday.”

“Well, happy birthday, then…” Castiel trails off, raising his eyebrows, and even drunk Dean knows he’s fishing.

“Dean,” he says and raises his own eyebrows in return.

Castiel gives him that wide, bright smile again. “Castiel.”

They talk until Castiel’s friends are ready to go. Castiel leaves his phone number with Dean and Dean dreams that night of blue eyes.

It’s easy between them, when they meet up again. Castiel is strange, standoffish at times, missing cues that others would pick up on, but Dean finds he likes the way Castiel is straightforward and almost guileless. It’s easy to talk to him in a way that it isn’t with Sam or Charlie or his dad. They bicker on occasion, but within a few weeks, they are dating exclusively.

It’s the slowest moving relationship Dean has ever had. Cas will hold his hand, curl up with him on the couch, make out with him, but he bulks when Dean tries to take it further. Dean’s wary of his boundaries, wary of his skittishness. He doesn’t want to push, but he worries in the back of his mind.

They’re together five months when Dean finds himself at a friend’s party with Cas. Dean’s tipsy, but Cas is drunk and hanging off Dean. Dean takes him home, settles him into bed to sleep it off, but Cas catches him, pulls him in and slides his hand into Dean’s jeans. It’s the first time Cas has touched him like this, and it’s as good as Dean had hoped. Dean undoes his jeans, then Cas’s, and grinds his hips into Cas’s as they jerk each other off, kissing messily, hungrily. Cas comes first, moaning Dean’s name against his lips. Dean follows shortly after, clutching at Cas. He falls asleep curled around Cas, but wakes up alone.

It’s almost two weeks before he sees Castiel again, over a week from the last time he’d heard from him. Dean comes home from work to find Castiel sitting in front of his door, looking miserable and tired. Dean almost doesn’t let him in, almost doesn’t talk to him, but Cas clutches at his arm, says, “ _Please_ , Dean,” and Dean- 

Dean lets him in.

“You have a soulmate,” he answers when Dean demands to know what happened.

“So?” 

Dean had told him that he had a tattoo, but Cas had never asked to see it, had not done much more than lick his lips and nod in acknowledgement. Dean had taken that to mean that Cas didn’t care, but apparently it meant he cared too much.

Cas sits now, in Dean’s kitchen, fingers curled so tight around a beer bottle his knuckles are white. “I’ve never- Everyone I’ve ever been in a relationship with who had one has left me.” Cas’s voice breaks, but his face remains blank, emotionless. 

Dean moves from where he has been leaning against the counter and sits next to Cas, reaching out to take the beer from him and hold his hand.

“Cas, I don’t believe in it.”

Cas looks at him, eyes wide, mouth open, the blank look shocked off his face. Dean shakes his head.

“I can’t promise that we’ll work out or that we’ll always be together, be happy, but I’m not going to leave you for some mythical person someone somewhere decided was who I should be with. I’m not going to meet them and turn around and drop you.”

Cas continues to stare at him, eyes searching for a long moment, before his hand tightens around Dean’s and he leans forward to press a kiss to Dean’s mouth. He rests his forehead against Dean’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice low and aching, “for disappearing.”

Dean nods and kisses Cas’s temple. “You gotta talk to me, Cas. Don’t just leave again.”

“I won’t,” he says and Dean wishes he could think of it as a promise, but he doesn’t.

Cas remains guarded, distant in some ways, but in others he opens, he blooms. Dean finds it easier to pull smiles from Cas, to get him to laugh. He spends nights curled around Dean, head buried in his neck, hot breath flowing in and out over Dean’s shoulder. They touch; they kiss. Dean learns that Cas is quite good with his mouth, that Cas _likes_ to use his mouth, falling apart as he sucks Dean off.

He never sees Cas naked. Cas doesn’t say anything directly, but he’ll push past Dean’s hands, push on to the next rush, demand _now, now, Dean_ and when they wake together in the morning, it’s not skin to skin. As focused as he is on Cas, Dean never realizes that Cas never allows him to get naked either. Cas has never seen his tattoo, and the few times it peeks out from the edge of Dean’s sleeve, Cas keeps his gaze averted. Dean learns to wear long sleeves around Cas just to see his eyes.

They’re together nearly a year, rutting together in bed, Dean rolling his hips into Cas’s as he grinds their cocks together, pressing Cas’s hands above his head into the bed, when Dean sucks an open-mouthed kiss to Cas’s neck and whispers, “I love you, Cas. So much.”

Cas freezes against him and Dean pulls back to see him staring at Dean, eyes wide, almost fearful. Dean lets go of Cas’s wrists and starts to pull back, but Cas tightens his legs around Dean’s waist, wraps his arms around Dean’s shoulders and pulls him into a rough, hot kiss. He says into Dean’s mouth, “In me, Dean. I want you in me.”

It’s the first time Cas has wanted this, and Dean groans against his mouth before he works Cas open eagerly. As Dean slides into him, presses his weight against him, Cas clings to him and asks, “Say it again.”

So Dean does. Again and again. He says it until Cas believes him, until Cas comes between them, in Dean’s fist, onto his own stomach, Cas’s shirt pushed up out of the way, gasping “Love you, Dean, love you,” and pulling Dean over with him.

Three days later, Dean is lying on his couch, legs splayed, beer resting against his thigh, something on TV that he’s not paying attention to, when someone knocks on his door. He opens it to find Pamela there, looking the same, staring past him with those white eyes.

Dean goes cold. He says, before he can stop himself, “No.”

Pamela’s eyes widen as her unaware gaze shifts to him. “Dean?”

“What are you doing here?” Dean demands.

She gives him a reproachful look, mouth curled down. “I came to give a tattoo to someone here. I didn’t know who it was.” She’s quiet for a moment, then asks, voice flat as if she already knows the answer, “Do you have a roommate?”

Dean can’t bring himself to answer. Pamela sighs and pushes past him. She sets her supplies down on his kitchen table and beckons him.

“Come here, Dean.”

Dean pulls off his shirt and turns toward her. She reaches out and touches his arm, feels the tattoo.

“You’ve met them.” She sounds surprised. Dean shrugs; her hand moves with his shoulder.

“I suppose.”

She presses her mouth into a tight line, taps her fingers against his skin. “I’m supposed to add to it,” she says finally.

“I don’t-” Dean cuts himself off. “I’m with someone,” he says instead. “I’m happy with him.”

“Is he not the one?”

Dean shakes his head. “He doesn’t have a soulmate.”

Pamela says nothing, but she opens her case and pulls out the tattoo gun, bottles of ink. 

“What does this even mean?”

She pauses in her work, but keeps her eyes down, away from Dean. “If you were with your soulmate, I’d say that it means the bond was stronger. That something changed. I don’t know what it means that you aren’t with them.”

“Can you just not…”

Pamela frowns at him. “No, Dean, I can’t.”

Dean closes his eyes. He sits and lets Pamela add to it. It curls to life across the back of his shoulder and over his shoulder blade. She tells him quietly that she’s adding both his and his soulmate’s parts. Dean keeps his eyes closed and doesn’t try to stop the tears that slip down his cheeks silently.

If Pamela knows, she doesn’t say anything. She finishes the tattoo, cleans it up, and leaves him sitting at the kitchen table.

He’s supposed to see Cas tonight, but the rawness of the tattoo digs into him. He doesn’t want Cas to know, doesn’t want to see the look on his face, because he knows what it will do to Cas. Anger boils in him and he pounds his fist against the table. He wants to call Cas, but he doesn’t know what will come out of his mouth.

He chooses to lie. He chooses to be a coward.

He texts Cas: _hey man something came up raincheck?_

It takes Cas an hour to respond. _That’s fine, Dean. I had something come up as well._

Dean licks his lips, hesitates, sends it anyway. _love you cas_

Cas’s response is quicker this time. Dean smiles against the ache in his chest as he reads _I love you too, Dean._

It’s two weeks before he sees Cas again, and though the tattoo is still sore and healing, he presses his face into Cas’s shoulder and clings to him. Cas fists his hands into Dean’s shirt and holds on just as tight. He’s trembling, but when Dean asks him what’s wrong, he just shakes his head and pulls Dean back against him.

Cas stays the night. He curls into Dean’s arms and lets Dean hold him. It takes them both a long time to fall asleep, and Dean still wakes a few hours later to find Cas also awake. He sits up against the headboard of the bed, hands in his lap. Dean can see Cas’s face in relief against the streetlight outside the bedroom window, and it is distant, empty.

Dean reaches out and touches his leg. Cas turns his head toward Dean, but his expression does not change. His coldness remains.

“Cas, what’s wrong?”

“My whole family was raised to believe in the power of a soulmate,” Cas says. 

Dean sits up. The cold fear from Pamela’s visit surges to life again against his ribcage. Cas turns his face away. 

“We were told as children that the most important thing in our lives would be our soulmates. They would be perfect for us, be who we needed most of all. I believed it for a long time.” He falls silent.

Dean waits, but when Cas does not speak again, he says, “I told you I don’t believe in it, but that’s because I looked when I was younger. I found a lot of stories about people whose soulmates were… horrible people, or people who brought out the worst in them, or they just… weren’t in love with each other. I don’t know what makes people soulmates, but it doesn’t always work out. And you don’t need a soulmate to be happy. Plenty of people never have soulmates.”

Cas scrubs a hand through his hair. “You are the first person I’ve ever met who believes that, Dean.”

“Cas, what’s going on?”

“I want more, Dean. I hide from you- I’m afraid-” Cas’s voice chokes and he sits, shaking hard. Dean moves toward him, but Cas raises his hand to hold Dean off. “Everyone in my family has a soulmate, except for Gabriel.” Cas pauses, turns his face toward Dean.

“And you. I know.”

“No, Dean. Gabriel is the only exception.”

It takes Dean a moment to understand what Cas is saying. He sits back in the bed and gapes at Cas. “Is that why-”

Cas nods. “I didn’t get mine until I was in my early twenties. My family thought I might be like Gabriel. He always said he wasn’t made for just one person, but I always felt like I was. I wanted it so bad, and my family’s pity made it worse.” Cas pauses. He rubs his hands over his face, digs his fingers into his hair and pulls. “I had come to terms with it, and then when the psychic showed up, I didn’t really know what to think. I had lost boyfriends to their soulmates, but with my tattoo, I lost people because they didn’t want to ‘interfere’.” Cas’s tone is bitter, harsh. 

He falls silent, but Dean can feel him trembling; he never really stopped. Dean squeezes Cas’s leg and climbs from the bed to turn on the light. He wants to see Cas, wants to see what has him so afraid. 

He sits before Cas, pulling his legs up onto the bed and scooting closer to Cas when Cas folds his own legs up to his body. Dean rests his hands on Cas’s knees.

“If I don’t believe in it for myself, why would I believe in it for you, Cas?”

Cas closes his eyes, shakes his head. Dean considers him, licks his lips, and decides to push.

“Show me.”

Cas’s head snaps up, eyes wide. “What?”

“You’re so afraid of my reaction to your tattoo, show it to me. That’s what you’ve been hiding from, right? You didn’t want to see mine; didn’t want me to see yours?”

Cas hesitates, nods.

“ _Show me._ ” It’s an order. Cas closes his eyes. Dean waits. When Cas finally moves, he sits up and reaches for the hem of his shirt, still not looking at Dean. Dean scoots back to give him room. Cas takes a deep breath. He pulls his t-shirt over his head. Cas takes another deep breath and then he turns and presents his back to Dean.

Dean’s breath catches in his throat. He feels his own hands start to shake. He thinks, _Jesus fucking Christ._

Cas’s tattoo curls over the wings of his shoulder blades and down the ridges of his spine. Along the broad line of Cas’s shoulders, Dean can see the newly healed portion that Dean expects was added two weeks ago. It’s green edging into blue. It’s a spiraling, almost geometric pattern.

Dean covers his eyes with his hand, says out loud, “Jesus fucking Christ.”

He never expected this, never thought- in the million ways he had considered this once upon a time- he had never once thought he would be with his soulmate _and not know it_. Dean doesn’t know what to do with this. He fell in love with Cas anyway. Dean starts laughing- _he fell in love with Cas anyway._

Cas turns, touches his arm, his hand where it covers his eyes still. “Dean?” 

Cas’s worry, his fear, brings Dean back to himself. 

He drops his hand, looks at Cas, and says again, “Jesus Christ, Cas.” 

He pulls off his shirt and shows Cas his shoulder. Cas goes still. He doesn’t move as Dean watches him. Watches his face go blank, watches his lips part, watches his eyes go dark. Cas’s face crumples with emotion as he reaches out to touch Dean’s shoulder.

He draws a shaky breath, says, “I worked at that stupid mall. My family looked for you.” He laughs wetly. “They’re still looking for you even though I keep telling them I’m happy with you.” Cas makes a face at that and Dean barks a laugh.

“Pretty fucking weird,” Dean says. Cas nods, his attention still on Dean’s shoulder. His fingers trace the lines up his arm and to the top of his shoulder where Cas brushes against the newly added design.

“It was after I said I loved you,” Cas notes as Dean turns to let him see the rest of it.

“Pamela said it showed the bond had gotten stronger,” Dean says quietly.

Cas licks his lips. “When Chuck came back I thought I was going to be sick. I told him I didn’t want it, but he said…”

He trails off, but Dean knows what the psychic said. “Pamela said the same.”

Cas’s face crumples again, briefly, before he regains control. “Dean,” he says, and he sounds lost. He sounds pained.

“I know, Cas.” He cards a hand through Cas’s hair, down to his neck, and he pulls Cas into a quick kiss before he gathers him into a hug. “It’s kind of fucked up, to not believe, to think you’re falling in love with a random person, but you’re not random.”

Cas slides his arms around Dean’s waist, and he stays there, curled against Dean. Eventually Cas sighs.

“I can’t decide if I should tell my family,” he says.

Dean laughs. “You’re just going to let them keep looking for me?”

Cas shrugs, huffs a laugh against Dean’s chest. “It would serve them right.” He sounds like himself, Dean notices with relief; he sounds annoyed.

“Come on, man. Let’s worry about this tomorrow.” 

He pushes Cas down into the bed, turns off the light, and climbs under the sheets to wrap himself around Cas. It’s the first time he’s been able to press himself to Cas’s skin. He slides close, slides his hands over Cas’s body, presses his lips to Cas’s neck and shoulders. Cas sighs. He sighs and turns to face Dean.

Like before, he opens to Dean, but this time there’s no hesitation, no pushing past, no demands to keep moving. He gives in to Dean’s exploration, touches Dean as Dean touches him. It’s better than Dean could have imagined. Cas takes Dean inside himself again, wraps his body around Dean’s. Dean presses himself flat to Cas, wraps his arms around Cas’s back, revels in the warmth of Cas’s skin. Cas comes between them, arching into Dean’s body, a whispered litany of _love you, love you, love you_ falling from his mouth. Dean comes silently inside Cas, face pressed into the curve of his neck and shoulder. Afterwards, he holds Cas’s face, kisses him, and gives his own words back to him.

Dean is almost expecting it this time when he opens the door three days later to find Pamela and Chuck waiting for them.

**Author's Note:**

> I have [a mini-epilogue](http://casualstories.tumblr.com/post/120876160883/capitulation-mini-epilogue) and [more about the soulmate tattoos](http://casualstories.tumblr.com/post/120876284668/about-soulmate-tattoos-capitulation-fic) on tumblr.


End file.
